The view from Peak Hard
“There’s really not much more room for innovation,” grumbled my Utah friend. “Maybe that’s because we’ve made everything too easy. And look where that’s gotten us … mile long lift lines, packed parking lots, insane river traffic.”
The wide ranging conversation was one of those way overdue downloads, a drive-by of multiple topics that free ranged through the infuriation of politics, the precarious awesomeness of mountain towns, and how lucky we were that our kids still talked to us. His jawing at the red meat about innovation in the outdoor industry was entirely my fault, as the topic had been freshly baked into my brain after listening to a podcast that both inspired and infuriated me.
In the podcast, they talked about innovation as if it was merely a well-timed manufacturing tweak, or a calculated material swap that smoothed out supply chain timing to the benefit of both brands and retailers. They saw it as something that happened in the corporate design lab, where gear nerds in lab coats rubbed copious amounts of Tiger Balm into their temples and they flipped through spreadsheets.
And yeah, maybe that is the reality, but my innovation fantasy looks a lot different.
To me, innovation is about big ideas like flying bicycles and underwater canyoneering devices. It’s about the spark of invention more than the mastery of the maker. It stems from the inspiration (or the aggravation) of seeing a distant thing and dreaming about climbing it or skiing it or jumping off it. And then plotting out how to do it better or faster or differently or simply first, and worrying about the gear part later, if at all.
It makes me bristle to hear someone say that the outdoor world has reached a ‘limit of innovation,’ simply because we’ve come up with a pretty competent array of fancy technical fabrics and shiny plastics and space age metals.
But I will concede that we have made some of the hardest things in the world easier than ever. Those halo product features have trickled down from peak performance to luxury lifestyle — from core to casual, as they say — and as a result, they' have made many of the most uncomfortable environments pretty damn comfy. In other words, we’ve been both blessed and cursed by the rise of Peak Easy.
It’s basic math. As innovation increases over time, the difficulty of doing things naturally decreases. As seen daily in the outdoor world, fat skis can annihilate a mountain of powder in mere minutes. Full suspension e-bikes eat up terrain faster than a stoned teenager chows microwave nachos. Unsinkable rafts can now float any rapid, anywhere, any time. And Mercedes Sprinter vans with Starlink are bringing Netflix and chill deep into the desert on a regular basis.
And as we’ve inched closer to Peak Easy, innovation has naturally slowed. Not because we’re incapable of it, but because our motivation to innovate has been put on the back burner. What’s the point of discovering a new idea when it’s all so goddamn easy? In our blissful modern era of heated chairlifts and leaf blown flow trails, why dream of a new big thin when the hardest part about our outdoor day is finding a decent parking space?
So if we’re truffle hunting for a shortcut to a breakthrough, maybe we shouldn’t be looking forward from the cushy sectional couches of Peak Easy. Instead, maybe we should be looking back at the conditions that led up to our biggest breakthroughs. Back at Peak Hard — that time when the gear was the worst, but the accomplishments were the most remarkable. When achievements were made despite the gear not because of it. And when that shitty old thing didn’t get in the way, it was part of the experience, part of the suffering, part of the story.
Peak Hard was the time when the struggle and the desire far outweighed the capabilities of the gear, but it didn’t matter. When we didn’t know how much easier, warmer, drier, faster and less dangerous to our femurs and ulnas it was about to get, but we did it anyway … and with vigor.
So, when was Peak Hard?
Since it’s tough to top crossing the land bridge from to North America in minimalist running sandals, rowing with your Viking pals to Greenland without a TheraGun to help you recover, or poking around looking for the Northwest Passage with allegedly no wifi at all —when was Peak Hard in the modern outdoor era? When was that time in recent history when the doing far surpassed the using (after we’d had a few years with rubber rafts, aluminum frame packs, and a few plastic boots)?
My brain goes to 1971 … the year that the Evil Kneivel movie came out, a Black rodeo was hosted in Harlem, and Warren Miller filmed at Mad River Glen. It was the year Bill Briggs climbed and skied the Grand Teton (honestly, who would do that in that gear?); a bunch of Brits canoed the Grand Canyon (which kinda seems like using dental floss to cut through a two by four); and a high school kid claimed to be the first to thru-hike the AT (publishing a packing list that will make you feel truly soft).
Where does your brain go?
I’ve been reading Wade Davis’s incredible book “Into the Silence,” which deep dives into the history leading up to Mallory’s disappearance on Everest in 1924. Just describing the book that way sells it short, however. It goes from the trenches of World War I back to the odd British Invasion of Tibet in 1903 to the lives of the many brave souls beating Mallory and Irvine on those early expeditions. Those men epitomized “peak hard,” broken by brutal war, using minimal gear, climbing into the unknown through snowblindness. I’m not sure we can ever experience what they went through. The world is too known now. When it comes to mountain biking and my own personal experience, I started riding in 1988 or so on a cheap, fully rigid, steel-frame Giant Iguana. I used the bike mainly to commute around Boston (including getting doored twice and I still have a scar between my middle and ring finger on my right hand to prove it). But when it was time to go “mountain biking” we’d beat the shit out of these bikes at the Middlesex Fells in Medford, peddling there from Allston or Somerville. Mood-altering substances may have come into the picture at times. The trails sucked, filled with rocks, broken glass, and the all-too-prevalent heroin needle. For “good” rides we headed to Lynn Woods or maybe New Hampshire. I got really good at modifying the bike into a single speed after breaking numerous rear derailleurs, and somehow walked away from countless big crashes including cracking a helmet in half. Man, was it fun, and dumb, and real—and the gear sucked. — Doug Schnitzspahn (writer, author and host of Open Container)
I don't think it is a specific moment in time, more like a condition in time when audacity outpaces apparatus, or, human Imagination and Optimism exceeds human Innovation and Ingenuity. So, f (Peak Hard) = (I + O) / (In +Ig). When the numerator out-guns the denominator and the ratio climbs above 1, you hit "Peak Hard". Call it the Grit-to-Gear Index (GGI), or, the Idiocy Index. Think Mallory and Irvine on Everest. Sylvain Saudan skiing 50° faces on 205s. Bill Briggs dropping the Grand in leather boots. Shackleton dragging in the Antarctic. Scott Lindgren et al threading the Tsangpo Gorge in plastic creek boats. Legendary because experience, imagination, and optimism, and not the gear, clearly carried the day. You could even add a Survival Coefficient, and maybe a Lunacy Factor, to account for just how sideways it could’ve gone. But as an English major, this is the limit of my math. Thought about another way, the GGI could also show how today's gear has outpaced what most of us need/use it for. Interesting to think that maybe these examples show we have passed the golden age of Peak Hard, but in the social media era of performative fame and unhinged ambition, don’t count it out. There are no limits to human imagination and idiocy, apparently. – Mike Geraci (brand guy)
Peak Hard in surfing was when Laird Hamilton and Dave Kalama were towed into Jaws circa 1993. Yes, they were towed in, but that took so much guts. Peak Hard in polar expeditions was when Will Steger and team crossed Antarctica via dogsled team in 1989-1990. Peak Hard in Nordic skiing was when Bill Koch became the first American to win a medal in an international competition in 1974 or Jessie and Kikkan’s first gold-medal win. — Stephanie Pearson (contributing editor to Outside, a 2023 National Geographic Explorer, and the author of 100 Great American Parks)
I asked my dad this question because he's 85 and spent the past six decades racing in the Masters circuit in New England. He said he thinks the 70's were "peak hard" in ski racing. He said ski manufacturers were experimenting with new materials like fiberglass/wood/metal but they hadn't dialed in the new technology and skis were breaking. There were new skis like the Roc 550 Rossignols that were popular, Atomic and Dynamic has popular race skis and Dynastar had a fiberglass-only ski that would break all the time. Despite this, ski racers were pushing them to the limit. His favorite recollection is a Masters racer named Peter Carter. Peter showed up in old clothes, old gear, old spray painted Olin Mark IV skis, no racing suit, but he would beat everyone, even ex-USST guys because he was aggressive but always thinking positively, always smiling, not saying anything, just doing. He was having fun with it, kind of a non-serious, hippie-approach, which was the antithesis to the serious, European race way. Peter's way was really fast and proved that it wasn't always about the gear — Krista Crabtree (writer)
That's easy for surfing—the 70s. Boards were fucking awful. The shortboard revolution was in full swing, but shapers were still learning how to make boards built for speed and turning. Boards were way too thick, rails were all over the place, but generally were awful (except for some work done on boards meant for tuberiding in Hawaii), and they were singlefins still. Add that all together and you have boards that were nearly impossible to surf well on, but some truly incredible surfing was still going on. The boards sucked, but they unlocked steeper, hollower waves like Pipeline, and gave us true tuberiding ability. I've surfed for 30 years, but if you put me on a thick, 7'3" with sharp down rails and a sickle-shaped single fin and I'd barely be able to go straight, let alone attempt any kind of maneuver with dignity. It's amazing we made it through that era at all. (I'd also argue the early 90s were just as bad for regular surfers, as, by then, shortboards had become glass slippers fitting only the best surfers on earth, so regular joes, who used to always ride what the pros did, were left behind, flailing and bogging on thin, narrow boards most of us couldn't hope to surf.) — Justin Housman (conservation advocate, writer and surfer)
A few phases come to mind. One: Doug Coombs in Alaska, pioneering big-line skiing on stupid long straight skis and lo-tech binding mechanisms. Another would be the birth of mountain biking. People pedaling heavy steel cruisers up mountains is just absurd. I mean, how did that sport ever take off? It’s almost impossible to imagine.. Also, though, for a lot of those outdoor pursuits, the whole emphasis on accomplishment is sort of a modern lens. Back in the 60s and 70s, most people who hiked and backpacked did it to escape, to drop out, to dissolve into nature. A lot of paddlers had a similar motivation. Maybe as gear made sports easier, people had to create a framework of “extreme” accomplishment to counterbalance the fact that simply surviving the excursion was not accomplishment enough. — Kelly Bastone, writer
Am I old enough at 54 to realistically put this perspective? I feel like the Henry Barber and Jack Tackle era would be the most relevant, as it was a time when the old gear was still being used and the new gear was just starting to appear in their diverse specialties. The beginning of the light and fast alpine movement was a big deal with technology. I remember going climbing with Henry near Bolton Valley (I think) and he was still using webbing to make a harness and was climbing barefoot...refusing to use modern technology because he wasn't comfortable in it. — Noah Robertson (3Bird Apparel)
I think (Peak Hard) is 100% sport and equipment dependent. On the MTB side of things, there was a period of time where challenging trails like Porcupine Rim in Moab had been built or designated for MTB use, but the equipment was still yet to undergo the 'sea change' that came to mountain bikes in the late 2000's. Limited travel and lots of hardtails, steep head tube angles, short reach, and parts that would break ALL the time. I remember trekking out to Utah (from Missouri) in '99 with a bunch of friends on hardtails and 80mm forks. I'm sure folks would say 'you had suspension!?' and harken back to 80s and 90s fully rigid riding... though I would argue the trails available then were largely dirt and class 4 roads, plus some renegade use of hiking trails. Riding Porcupine on a hardtail with little wheels, a 3x9 drivetrain, inner tubes, etc... that was HARD. Riding it again recently on a modern bike make we realize just how good we have it now. — Nick Bennette (Vermont Mountain Bike Association)
Peak hard, for me, was likely in the 1980s. That's when "being outside" seemed to have a broad appeal but also before gear companies had really caught up. I'm talking uncomfortable external frame backpacks for long backpacking trips, long skinny skis that didn't float enough in deep snow, and snow jackets that were either waterproof or breathable but not both. But because the gear hadn't caught up, you really had to want to be outside, so the trails and lifts weren't so crowded and in many ways, life was better. I would rather have lousy gear and more space than better gear and all the crowds. — Jakob Schiller (writer, photograper & dad)
Each of us must judge "peak hard" through our own limited window into history. And for me, it aligned with the time I was pushing my own limits during the mid-1990s, specifically in ice climbing. Sure, GORE-TEX was a thing, but I was still climbing in old Carhartt pants and swinging aluminum ice axes. It was a very difficult time, as most of the obvious ice climbs were already established, so finding new lines meant sketchy ice on sketchy gear. Wool was still mostly old and scratchy. Gloves were getting better, but still not great. The most technical boots were heavy leather. But the climbing was still as hard then as it is today, and mixed routes were just arriving on the scene. No internet for beta, no real-time forecasts, just a lot of amazing adventures. Yeah, for me, peak hard was the 1990s. — Sean McCoy (Gear Junkie)
1990s for whitewater kayaking. We entered the 90s with fiberglass boats that could literally shatter when they hit rocks. And there are so many rocks in Western rivers. As whitewater kayaking pushed West, Chan Zwanzig thought it was time to create plastic boats and push away from slalom paddling with shorter, more durable boat designs. Zwanzig's Wavesport sparked a revolution that continues today. Back in the early 90s, the Wavesport Laser was cutting edge. It would tip over in a ripple. We didn't go to swimming pools to practice rolling. We just swam and swam from that unstable craft until we decided we hated swimming so much we would roll that cigar-shaped boat. Today's boat designs are nearly twice as wide and much shorter, with upturned bows and sterns. They turn on a dime and bounce through giant rapids that were largely unrunnable in the 1990s. For 20-somethings coming into our adventures in the 1990s, dang we learned at Peak Hard. I make sure and let those young rippers know that their moms and dads navigated the shit to get them their bouncy boats and surfy skis. — Jason Blevins (Colorado Sun)
If you're looking for "moments," I'd say Briggs' 1971 first descent of the Grand--especially with a fused hip—would have to be up there. (And that 150- to 200-foot hanging rappel.) But a few other gear-related moments include: anything on telemark skis prior to Scarpa developing the first plastic boot in 1993; whitewater rafting prior to the self-bailing rafts being invented in the early 90s; flyfishing for steelhead, especially winter steelhead, before the advent of short, heavy, "Skagit-style" shooting heads in the early '90s; and doing almost anything outdoors before Malden Mills invented fleece in the late '70s. — Tom Bie (The Drake)
When I have read the accounts of early polar expeditions I’ve always been left with the feeling that we are all wimps. And by “all” I mean even the toughest of modern bad asses. In the late 1800s and early 1900s explorers aiming for the North West Passage, North Pole and South Pole used gear that was heavy and bulky. Even before they got going they endured unimaginable boredom, overwintering in their ships - can you imagine! Once they got hiking they didn’t have lightweight tents, GPS or even maps. And they survived insane conditions. After their ship was crushed in the ice, the McLure expedition crossed most of the NW passage on foot in spring with little or no food. All day long they would get soaked falling through the melting ice and trudging through slush. At night their wet gear would freeze, while they slept in it, and yet they would get up and do it again. Tom Crean, part of British South Pole expeditions, once spent an Antarctica winter night surviving a Force 9 blizzard with just a sleeping bag for protection. IMO no FKT, 14 summits or even a solo ocean crossing on an oversized SUP comes even close. — Ryan Stuart (Ski Canada Magazine)
This is probably one of the most badass representations of peak hard … (sourced) “Børge Ousland completed the first solo unsupported crossing of Antarctica from November, 1996, to January, 1997. Over 64 days, he covered approximately 1,864 miles, unsupported by any resupply. He used an early handheld GPS for navigation, backed up by a sextant. He skied and pulled a 185 kg pulk. Ousland also used a kite for wind-assisted propulsion. It remains a landmark as the first unsupported solo traverse.” — Stephen Regenold (Gear Junkie)
Powder skiing used to be hard. The skis were as narrow as a credit card is wide. All you could do was hope that the GS ski you were on was soft enough to de-camber in the soft snow. The narrow width wasn’t that big of deal in blower powder on top of a firm base. A good skier could figure out that if you stayed centered over the ski, you could weight and unweight and get the skis to turn as they surfaced. But off trail skiing in manky snow, breakable crust, or even hot pow was something else altogether. To make such survival turns you had to be physically strong and highly skilled. That only came with years and years of experience. Buying your way in with fat skis was not an option. Tendons like cables. Core stabilizers like ropes. Lungs fighting for air. Pop turns were a must to get the 208s around. To actually ski that snow gassed you. For me, the year was 1997. Most core skiers had not yet embraced bigger skis. But Powder magazine had been building the cult for decades. It’s easy to ski powder today, thanks to Shane, but we were powder skiers once—and proud. Here I am at Alta in 1992. Point and shoots also sucked back then! — Marc Peruzzi (entrepreneur, professional writer … and amateur photographer)